1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to arranging golf clubs in carrying bags and, more particularly, is concerned with a molded one-piece golf club organizer structure and organizing assembly comprised of the molded one-piece golf club organizer structure and a golf bag top collar encircling and attached to the organizer structure.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Golf clubs are often carried in a sleeve-like bag designed for that purpose. A basic prior art golf club carrying bag has a tubular sidewall open at an upper end and closed at a lower end by a bottom end wall. An interior of the bag defines a cavity in which the golf clubs are stored vertically with their handgrip ends down so that heads of the clubs extend above the open upper end of the bag.
As is well-known, golf clubs generally differ from one another in terms of lengths of their shafts, shapes and sizes of their heads, and angles at which their golf ball striking surfaces extend relative to a horizontal plane. Golfers select one of the clubs to use for any given stroke depending on the particular placement of the ball whether in the rough or on the tee, fairway or green and the distance of the ball from the hole. As a result, many golfers prefer to maintain their clubs in their bag in some organized fashion so that they can quickly locate and replace the one club they have selected to use for the particular stroke at hand.
The basic design of the prior art golf bag does not provide a means to organize the clubs in the bag. As the bag is moved and jostled about during a round of play, the clubs will bump each other and move around in the bag relative to one another and will be disorganized causing the golfer to constantly search for the selected club. The bumping of the clubs against one another may also result in wear on the handgrip surfaces and dings and nicks on the club heads. In an effort to address these problems with the basic prior art bag, a variety of prior art approaches to bag design for better arranging and organizing golf clubs in the bags have occurred over the years.
In one prior art approach, individual divider members are arranged and connected to one another and to a top collar of the golf bag to provide an organizer structure across the open top end of the bag. In one example of this approach exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 5,123,531 to Beretta, the bag at the open upper end is provided with a front-to-back extending rigid central bar and a pair of front-to-back spaced apart rigid cross bars. The opposite ends of the bars extend through and are secured to the top collar of the bag. In another example of this approach exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 1,798,638 to Stone et al, U.S. Pat. No. 4,172,484 to Henning and U.S. Pat. No. 5,573,112 to Kim, divider panels of cloth or plastic sheets in various patterns are arranged across and attached to and extend downward from the top collar of the bag to form multiple separate compartments. In another prior art approach exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 4,596,328 to Solheim and U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,278 to Gretz, an organizer structure is provided in the form of a one-piece injection molded top cap which fits on the open top end of the tubular body of the golf bag. The one-piece top cap has a continuous outer ring-shaped member integrally connected with the integrally connected inner divider members to form compartments with one another and with the outer side wall. The Solheim patent also discloses alternative organizer structures wherein the inner divider members are provided as a separately molded insert which fit into and are secured to a separately molded outer ring-shaped member. The insert is secured to the outer ring-shaped member by a plurality of rivets which connect ends of the divider members of the insert to spaced portions of the outer ring-shaped member or by a strap which is threaded through the hollow interiors of the divider members and through openings in the outer ring-shaped member and whose opposite ends are then connected together by a fastener buckle located on the exterior of the outer ring-shaped member.
The above-described approaches have many drawbacks in terms of the complexity of their designs that would appear to result in unacceptably low reliability and high costs in their manufacture and assembling, not to mention that most fall short of maintaining the golf clubs in a desirable organized arrangement. Thus, a need exists for a more optimum solution which overcomes these drawbacks without introducing any new problems in their place.